re seethaayaas charitham mahath 3

[Guest guest]

Dear sri vaishNava perunthagaiyeer,

 

On the question of seethaa being treated as jeevaathmaa and hanumaan

assuming the role of achaarya while removing her `sOkham' of

separation, I had a discussion with another knowledgeable scholar

here. He confirmed that such a position is acceptable to sri

vaishNavaas of raamaanuja sampradhaayam – viz. seethaa being a woman

in this world, [born here] she has no swaathanthriyam [even though

she is the periya piraatti originally] and as such she expects and

has to rely on somebody like hanumaan, to take the role of an

aachaarya, to help her in her `sOkham' removal. Even in the nether

world she can only recommend to the lord and she can act only through

the lord sriman naaraayaNan. When she has come as seethaa and while

sitting in asOkha vanam, she is in similar position of jeevaathma

awaiting the arrival of aachaarya to plead to the lord for the

liberation.

 

Sree vaalmeeki in his srimadh raamaayaNam does not include even in an

inclined manner such a theory. In his excellent tamil version, kamban

also does not indicate any such interpretations in the uruk kaattup

padalam even though he has varied with vaalmeeki in few places while

composing his version of raamaayaNam.

 

May be these are all later interpretations by the commentators like

govindaraja and other aachaaryaas. I do not have any authentic

information on sri mudaliyaaNdaan nor my above source is able to

provide, I am unable to add any thing on that.

 

Interestingly Sriman ramanujam added more in his earlier mail on how

jeevaathma behaves in the `ordeal by fire'. That is given here.

Quote -

 

Ramanujam Varada Srinivasa Thatta [acharyatvsr (AT) hotmail (DOT) com]

Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2004 11:41 AM

RE: Ordeal by Fire – 1 & 2 - The case for Sita-

pirAtti

Consider the following points:

1) Seeta Piratti should have obeyed Rama and stayed back.

Instead she made Lord Sree Rama Chandra take Her along to the forest.

She disobeyed the Lords command.

 

2) She wanted the maya mrigam, knowing fully well that such a

creature does not exist. She coveted a simple, earthly but glamorous

object knowing it is "Kshanikam" in spite of the Lord telling Her so

and that when the Lord was beside Her, who should have been the

object for admiration, adoration and everything else.

 

3) When Maricha cried out impersonating Ramachandra Prabhu, How

could she for one moment think that The Lord is vulnerable like

ordinary beings? How could She doubt His ability to protect Himself

and others? If the Lord cannot protect Himself How can He protect His

devotees?

 

This is how a Jeevathma behaves:

1) The Jeevathma disobeys the Lords commands and lands into

difficulties.

2) when it sees something appealing to its 5 senses, in this

case the eyes, the Jeevathma forgets the Lord (Parmathma), may be

even for a fraction of a second.

3) When in distress Jeevathmas even doubt the Lord and His

ability to protect them.

After undergoing all hardships in this earthly life the Jeevathma

finally surrenders to Lord Narayana with unquestioning faith. It is

now even ready to jump into fire knowing well that the Lord will

protect the believer and nothing can harm it. Adiyen, Ramanuja

Dasan. – unquote.

 

I think with this we can move on to some other interesting points in

srimadh raamaayaNam. Thanks and regards

 

Dhasan

Vasudevan m.g.